Amazon enters AI chatbots game
Cybertruck reveal, delay in GPT store launch, new details on Okta's breach, and more.
🗞 In the Know
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stage to reveal details about the company’s new and unconventional Cybertruck pickup on last week in Austin, Texas. The major ones - it’s bulletproof, takes 2.6 seconds from 0 to 100 kmh, but, oops, priced 50% higher than expected.
OpenAI delays launch of custom GPT store. - OpenAI has delayed the launch of its custom GPT store until early 2024, citing the need for improvements based on customer feedback.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner, died at 99. Mr. Buffett has described him as the originator of Berkshire Hathaway’s investing approach. “The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices,” Mr. Buffett once wrote in an annual report.
Okta has discovered that hackers who breached its network two months ago stole information on all users of its customer support system — a scope far greater than the 1% of customers the company had previously said were affected, notes Bloomberg.
Not a news piece - a podcast. Sequoia Capital published a podcast with one of the key figures in the current AI revolution - Jensen Huang (NVIDIA CEO).
@prayingforexits, thank you for memes!
🏁 VentureVista
PhysicsX, a startup founded this year that uses generative AI to create and run simulations for engineers working in the automotive and aerospace industries, raised a $32M Series A round led by General Catalyst, with Standard Industries, NGP Energy, Radius Capital, and Henry Kravis also pitching in.
“Something like airflow across an object may take you an hour or two hours, but if you want to simulate something more complex, it may take you a day or longer. So, there’s a computational cost and therefore, also a time cost to this. And that limits the depth at which you can optimize,” said Robin Tuluie, who co-founded PhysicsX with Jacomo Corbo, in an interview to TechCrunch.Squint, a startup that claims it has created a simple way for organizations to build augmented reality workflows, raised a $13M Series A round led by Sequoia Capital, with Menlo Ventures also contributing.
With Squint, users pointing their smartphone or tablet cameras at physical objects in the work environment — whether or not those objects are “smart” and connected or not — can trigger detailed, step-by-step instructions to use those machines, log sheets to record maintenance or other work and more.Augment, a startup that offers an MBA program that is entirely online and delivered through a mix of videos from business leaders raised a $6M seed round led by RTP Global, with additional funds provided by Motier Ventures, Origins Fund, Kima Ventures, Bpifrance, and Financière Saint James.
The startup’s main program is called the Augment MBA. It is an opinionated and differentiated take on MBAs as everything happens online with a mix of videos from inspiring business leaders, case studies, quizzes, written assignments, downloadable handbooks, etc.Wind, a startup whose crypto wallet is designed for the average consumer and lets users send and receive payments, store their crypto, and exchange crypto for regular money, raised a $3.8M pre-seed round co-led by Global Founders Capital and Spartan Group, with Saison Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Tiny VC also stepping up.
Wind.app is starting off by targeting freelancers and remote workers for payment, especially in Southeast Asia. It went live in the Philippines, India, and Bangladesh and plans to enter more countries. Many of its early customers are other web3 startups; the app allows them to use it instead of an exchange with high fees to pay their remote workers.Layla, a startup that says it uses social media content and AI to help users discover, plan, and book their travel experiences, raised a $3.3M seed round co-led by Firstminute Capital and M13.
Fusing the appeal of short-form travel video and the power of AI, Layla is helping would-be travelers not only discover where they want to go, where to stay, and what to do on their next adventure, but helping them seal the deal then and there.
🔥 Exits:
Singapore-based fast fashion house Shein is going public, reports The WSJ. The company was valued at $66B when it last raised money in May. In a potential U.S. stock sale, Shein’s valuation might hit $90B, putting it roughly three times ahead of the retail giant H&M, which has a market capitalization of about $27B.
SpaceX has acquired a parachute company, Pioneer Aerospace, for $2.2M, because it turns out space-rated parachutes are very hard. Pioneer provides the drogue parachutes for SpaceX’s Dragon capsules, the spacecraft line that NASA uses to transport cargo and astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Drogue chutes are extremely sophisticated components designed for high velocity; in the case of Dragon, the chute deploys after the capsule has reentered through much of the atmosphere to stabilize the spacecraft and slow it down a little bit.
@prayingforexits, thank you for memes x2!
💡Innovation Spotlight
Amazon introduces Q, an AI chatbot for companies. The chatbot, developed by Amazon’s cloud computing division, is focused on workplaces and not intended for consumers. Amazon Q aims to help employees with daily tasks, such as summarizing strategy documents, filling out internal support tickets and answering questions about company policy. It will compete with other corporate chatbots, including Copilot, Google’s Duet AI and ChatGPT Enterprise.
Stability AI has launched Stable Diffusion XL Turbo. SDXL Turbo's primary innovation lies in its ability to produce image outputs in a single step, a significant reduction from the 20–50 steps required by its predecessor. So rapidly, in fact, that the company is billing it as "real-time" image generation.
📈 Insightful Data
According to VC firm Atomico, companies in Europe are on track to raise just $42B this year — less than half the $85B that startups in the region raised in 2022.
Venturized is compiled and written by Ivan Taranenko, Associate at Roosh Ventures.
Roosh Ventures is a Kyiv-based entrepreneurs-led, generalist VC firm investing in Pre-seed to Series A across EU and US markets. Powered by Roosh.
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